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WWI
LENGTH OF WAR August 1st, 1914 to November 11th, 1918 (1564 days) How it Started Tensions had been rising in Europe, especially in the South Eastern part. But what really ignited World War I was when Archduke Franz Ferdinand (heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire) and his wife were shot to death by Serbian nationalists. Serbia suspected that Austria-Hungary were preparing for war, so they asked Russia for assistance. Then on July 28th Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Summary of War Within a week, Russia, Belgium,France, Great Britain, and Serbia had lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany. Germany started the fighting by attacking on two fronts. Invading France in the west and attacking Russia in the east. In August 1914, Germany crossed Belgium borders, this was the first battle of World War I. The Germans attacked the heavily guarded and armed city of Liege. The Germans used the most powerful weapons they had, Enormous siege cannons. The Germans left the city after having destroyed it, winning the battle easily., they then advance towards France. The next battle was the First Battle of the Marne. The First Battle of the Marne lasted three days, (September 6-9, 1914) the battle was the British and the French military's confronting the invading Germans. But France And Britain were too powerful for the Germans as they were drove back to the North of the Aisne River. Trenches The French army kept retreating and the Germans were insight of Paris, the French commander told the French army to stop retreating, and the French army dug trenches for defensive positions and the Germans did the same, and the line of trenches stretched from Belgium to the border of Switzerland and it became a stalemate. Greek Entry The Prime Minister and the King of Greece were debating over which side they should join, and after a national schism, (which basically means a country splits in two) the king abdicated and the country reunited into a Entente supporting Greece and Greece with it's geographical closeness to Albania and Serbia, they started a new frontier. Russian Collapse Shortly after the fall of Lemberg, General Hindenburg assembled a new army in Eastern Prussia, designated the Ninth German Army, to assist Austria and prevent the Russian Army from advancing on Silesia. The Ninth aimed to cut straight through Poland (a territory of Russia), capture Warsaw, and continue on into Galicia to engage the Russian Southern Army. Once the German Ninth army got underway, it met extremely heavy resistance in Poland. Despite seven months of intense fighting the army was unable to capture Warsaw. Meanwhile, to the South, the Russian Southern Army was unable to penetrate Silesia but kept hold of Galicia. The German High Command, realising a war with two fronts would be impossible maintain, told the troops on the Western Front to dig in and hold their ground — a shifted their attention to Russia. By September 1915, two-thirds of the German Army were deployed on the Eastern front. The German offensive opened on April 15 28, 1915, and sent the Russian Army, short of ammunition and supplies, falling back to the East. On June 9 Lemberg was recaptured. With the Russian Southern Army front compromised and in retreat, on June 30 July 12 the German Twelfth Army, coming from the NorthWest (East Prussia and Pomerania) spearheaded into Poland. The Russian and Polish soldiers in Poland were being crushed. After a month of desperate battle, the Russian Ministry of War conceded to let their troops retreat from Poland on July 9, 1915. The German Army followed at the heels of the retreating Russians, but by the end of September the German advance halted to reinforce all the gains it had made: the new front was established from the Southern border of the Russian state of Moldavia straight up to kilometers outside Riga in Latvia. Poland and Lithuania, inhabitited by some 23 million people, had been lost to Germany. Amid increasingly tense political protests in Russia, General Sukhomlinov (Minister of War) was arrested in the beginning of 1916 (though released in the following Autumn), and was replaced by General Alexis Polivanov. In August, Tsar Nicholas dismissed Nikolai Kikolaevich and assumed personal command of the Russian Military. On May 22 to June 4, 1916, Russian launched its second and last major offensive of the war. The Russian Army opened offensive operations along an enormous front: from Pinsk (in Southwest Belarus) to the Russian border with Romania — an advance nearly 400 kilometers long. The advance continued for ten weeks, inflicting heavy loses on the Austrian-Hungarian Army whose efforts in the main had been re-directed to fighting in Italy. Despite the Russian offensive, however, the front remained largely intact. Domestic protests continued in Russia, breaking out in masse with the new offensive. The government responded with political shuffling: several Generals, adminstrators, etc, were dismissed. Workers, peasants and soldiers, remained in unwavering support of ending the war. Thousands were arrested. Russian soldiers fleeing Russian soldiers running from advancing German troops (July, 1917) On October 26, 1917, the Soviet government issued a decree of peace, insisting that all belligerent powers open immediate negotiations for a democratic peace without annexations, and guarantee the right of every nation to self-determination (Russia was the only nation to do so at the end of the war, allowing all the former territories of Russia to self-determination. Independence was short lived however, as each republic was later incorporated/annexed into the Soviet Union by Stalin.) . The Entente refused to recognise the Soviet government, and continued the war. The Soviet government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918, ending four years of aggression between Russia and Germany. Defeat: The loses Russia suffered in the world war were catastrophic. Between 900,000 and 2,500,000 Russians were killed. At least 1,500,000 Russians and possibly up to more than 5 million Russians were wounded. Nearly 4,000,000 Russian soldiers were held as POWs (Britain, France and Germany had 1.3 million POWs combined). Economically Russia was devastated. 8,000,000,000 rubles in war debts were outstanding, strangling the national economy of its breath. Inflation soared; the gold reserves (then backing the currency) were nearly empty, revenues were exceedingly low while reconstruction costs were huge. Russia was on the verge of complete collapse. Zimmerman Telegram Between 1914 and the spring of 1917, the European nations engaged in a conflict that became known as World War I. While armies moved across the face of Europe, the United States remained neutral. In 1916 Woodrow Wilson was reelected President for a second term, largely because of the slogan "He kept us out of war." Events in early 1917 would change that hope. In frustration over the effective British naval blockade, Germany broke its pledge to limit submarine warfare on February 1, 1917. In response to the breaking of the Sussex pledge, the United States severed diplomatic relations with Germany. Several weeks later, on February 24, the British presented the Zimmermann telegram to the U.S. Government in an effort to capitalize on growing anti-German sentiment in the United States. The American press published news of the telegram on March 1. On April 6, 1917, the United States Congress formally declared war on Germany and its allies. The Zimmermann Telegram had such an impact on American opinion that, according to David Kahn, author of The Codebreakers, "No other single cryptanalysis has had such enormous consequences." It is his opinion that "never before or since has so much turned upon the solution of a secret message. The Defeat of the Central Powers (FINISH THIS) Deaths Gallery Category:Wars Category:World Wars Category:Empires Category:Europe Category:Poland Category:Japan Category:China Category:United States of America Category:Asia